Braunschweiger in Paradise?! September 13, 2011

Silence Dogood here, with apologies to Jimmy Buffett and his famous song “Cheeseburger in Paradise.”

As longtime readers of our blog know, I’ve been a vegetarian all my adult life. Sunday, our friend Ben and I were out running errands with our black German shepherd, Shiloh, in tow, and I was starving. It was almost 2 p.m. and, unlike OFB, who’d had a hearty breakfast followed by pizza for lunch, I’d had nothing to eat all day. I was pizzaed out and craving a CLT (cheese, lettuce and tomato sandwich on whole-grain bread).

So when I dashed into our local grocery, I headed to the deli counter to see if they could satisfy my cravings. I ended up with a bonanza: plenty of fresh mozzarella, tomato, basil, onion, and Romaine lettuce on a multigrain bun with olive oil, black pepper, salt, and oregano. They called it a “small (6-inch) Caprese hoagie,” but even so, I was only able to eat half when I got home, hungry as I was. (No “Supersize Me” action going on at this house!)

So there I was, eating my late lunch and enjoying the flavors when I suddenly thought, “This tastes like a braunschweiger sandwich!” Braunschweiger, aka liverwurst, is basically a bologna-like but softer lunch meat made from calves’ liver and mercy knows what else. Braunschweiger sandwiches, with the lunch meat sandwiched between two slices of soft, spongy white “balloon bread” with plenty of mayo and iceberg lettuce, were one of the guilty pleasures of my childhood. We didn’t eat them often, but when we did, I loved them.

Now, you tell me: How could a sandwich on whole-grain bread with olive oil, fresh mozzarella, onion, basil, tomato and lettuce taste like a sandwich on white bread with mayo and liverwurst?!! The only thing they had in common was lettuce, and somehow I don’t think the poor lettuce was responsible for the similarity of flavor.

Maybe I’ve finally lost it. Like Jimmy Buffett, eating his zucchini fettucine and bulgur wheat but dreaming of cheeseburgers every night, perhaps I’ve started having braunschweiger-based delusional fantasies. Frankly, if I had to have a meat-based fantasy, I’d prefer for it to center around fried chicken or barbecued ribs or prime rib or lobster or roast turkey, not a lunch-meat sandwich. But what the hell. Once upon a time, I really did enjoy braunschweiger sandwiches. And I really did enjoy this “Caprese” sandwich, weird as the whole experience was. (I love Caprese salad, a summer favorite, which has all the same ingredients except bread, and have never, ever thought it tasted a thing like liverwurst.)

I guess the best course of action at this point is to take the always-excellent advice of Jimmy Buffett as expressed in two of his other hits, “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere” and “Margaritaville.” Won’t you join us?